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Looking healthy again Sampras advances with straight-set win over Bjorkman
Posted: Monday July 03, 2000 02:02 PM
LONDON (Reuters) -- Pete Sampras sent an ominous message to Wimbledon pretenders Monday that sore foot or not, he intends to secure a seventh title in eight years. The 28-year-old top seed blasted his way into the quarterfinals, beating Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden 6-3, 6-2, 7-5 and showing no sign of the injury that threatened his title defense last week. "I felt better about the way I played today," Sampras said. "My energy was a lot better ... it was nice to go out with a good attitude today." The defending champion came out on Centre Court guns blazing, bashing 17 aces, hitting hard from both sides of the court and using his trademark leaping overheads to smash anything high. Early in Saturday's four-set third round win over Justin Gimelstob, Sampras had looked out of sorts. But it was a vintage performance against Bjorkman, inspired by some advice from coach Paul Annacone. "I think my body language against Justin was pretty poor. I was dropping my head even more than usual," he said. "Paul said 'show a little more energy' not only for myself for my opponent, for the crowd ... I made an effort to do that to show a little bit more emotion," Sampras added. Bjorkman, who reached the fourth round without losing a set, had no answer to a newly pumped-up Pete, who punched the air and roared in triumph as he broke the Swede's service in the second set. "He was mixing it up so good today, I didn't really get a chance to get the time to put pressure on him," the 78th-ranked Bjorkman said. Sampras said his foot was still sore but he was fed up talking about it. "It's ok. It's sore, that's pretty much it," he said. But he added some players would always believe he was faking the injury. "There's always a cynical comment here or there that you hear from whoever," he said. "My opponents should worry about playing me and not worry if I'm hurt or not," Sampras, chasing a record 13th Grand Slam title, said. "You know my body has been fragile over the past couple of years. But this is our biggest tournament and I'm going to play it, do whatever I can to get to the weekend here."
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
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